Proposed change to Data Protocol

Table of contents

Following several instances where PIs have been contacted individually, we propose adapting the Data Protocol to encourage contact with all relevant PIs in a single email. This should encourage an appropriate response to co-authorship vs acknowledgement requests.

Confusingly, there are two separate things referred to as the 'Data Protocol':

Proposed new version

Use of Data

TCCON data are made freely available to the public and the scientific community, and are the product of extensive research and effort to maintain and improve their accuracy and quality. However, the availability of these data does not constitute publication, and TCCON partners require citable outputs from their research to ensure continuing funding and expansion of the network. We therefore expect all users of TCCON data to ensure that TCCON partners receive fair credit for their work, and are offered the opportunity to contribute to the research uses of the data as they deem appropriate.

Accordingly, we ask that all users note and adhere to the following guidelines and procedures when using TCCON data:

TCCON data are freely available for exploratory analysis. At such time as a journal publication or conference presentation is planned using TCCON data, the TCCON PIs of sites included in the analysis should be informed of the nature and aims of the research project and the intended use of the TCCON data. This will take the form of an 'abstract of intent', to be emailed to the relevant PI’s. Contact details are given on the TCCON wiki: References and Contact Information.

The abstract of intent will ensure TCCON partners have adequate fore−knowledge of the proposed research and thus the opportunity to contact data users and contribute as appropriate to the use of TCCON data in the research project.

If the TCCON partner makes a significant intellectual contribution to the research, or TCCON data from a site are essential to the work, or if an important result or conclusion depends on the data, co−authorship would normally be expected. This should be discussed at an early stage in the work.

When offering co-authorship or acknowledgement, all relevant TCCON PIs should be contacted via the same email thread. Generally, a response will be co-ordinated via one of the co-chairs after internal discussion to ensure a consistent, fair response to co-authorship or acknowledgement requests. (Note that this does not mean that all PIs will be either co-authors or acknowledged.)

Manuscripts using the data with TCCON co−authors should be sent to the coauthors for review well before (e.g. 4 weeks) they are submitted for publication, to ensure that the quality and limitations of the data are accurately represented and the coauthors have adequate time to provide input.